This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit series.
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Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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I've got a different kind of message tonight.
You will begin to know what it's about
from my title, but I have to tell
you that this message has deeply affected my
life, as few others have.
It's really strengthened me, and I hope tonight
as I minister, the Holy Spirit will make
it real to you, and that when you
walk out of here tonight, you will not
be what you were when you came in.
That God will have put a key, He
would have put a truth in your heart
about His Sabbath, and that's my message, honoring
the Sabbath.
Now, folks, there's a message here that's been
missed by the Church of Jesus Christ, totally
missed.
And this has been brewing in my heart
for years, and I've been praying, God, make
it real, and it's something I've known in
my heart, but I want to share it
with you tonight.
Honoring the Sabbath.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for your holy
word.
I thank you for your sanctifying word.
Your word, O Lord Jesus, that purifies and
cleanses our minds and our hearts and our
spirits.
Lord, I pray that you come upon me
tonight, make this so clear to me that
I can make it clear to this audience.
O Lord, about keeping the Sabbath, honoring the
Sabbath, and the victory that comes by it.
Lord, open up this truth.
Lord, this is something from your throne.
It's something you gave to the Church.
It's something, not because you gave it to
me, Lord, it's been there all the time,
but I believe you're going to open it
to our minds and those that are crushed
and burdened tonight.
May this be the message, Lord, that ushers
them into a new walk, a new way
of walking with you.
Lord Jesus, come now.
Holy Spirit, open our minds and our hearts
that we may comprehend and understand and know
this truth that you're trying to convey to
our hearts tonight.
Lord, I hide myself at the cross.
Lord, I thank you for the sanctifying power
of your word, the cleansing of your blood.
Now, we come to your word humbly.
We come to it humbly, Lord, not with
pride, but with humility that you will speak
to us.
For we are hungry, we're thirsty, and we
want your word to shape us in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Honoring the Sabbath.
Now, folks, I'm an old-fashioned preacher who
believes in honoring the Sabbath.
Now, I was raised in a Pentecostal preacher's
home, and we, our family, honored the Sabbath
day religiously.
It started with church Sunday morning.
You always went to church.
Everybody went to church Sunday morning.
You came home and you ate at dinner,
and then you took a nap because it's
a day of rest.
We took a nap whether we wanted it
or not, and it was awful.
I had to go upstairs when I was
full of life because on Sunday it was
not play day.
Sunday was a time.
We were not even allowed to take a
pair of scissors and cut up, you know,
cut anything on Sunday.
You didn't have scissors.
You cooked early in the morning and you
had enough for the day, but it was
not play day.
There was no pleasure.
There were no picnics, and there was no
recreation.
This was a day that you took your
nap, you rested, and then you got your
books out, you studied, you listened to music,
and then church Sunday night.
That was the Sabbath.
You kept it holy.
It was the Lord's day.
Now, in my early days, they had what's
called the blue laws.
The blue laws meant that stores did not
open on Sunday.
Nobody.
There was nothing but vital stores like gas
stations and hospitals, but you couldn't buy anything
on Sunday.
Even the rankest sinners didn't think of buying
anything on Sunday.
In fact, if a store was open, they'd
say, well, that man's lost his religion.
I mean, he wouldn't even go to church,
but he lost his religion because he kept
his store open on Sunday.
The great evangelist, D.L. Moody, many, many
years ago, over 100 years ago, had a
powerful evangelistic sermon on the Sabbath, and he
would cry out with all of his voice
against that.
They used to have bicycles built for two,
and he got enraged by seeing all these
sweethearts going through the park in their tandem
bicycles, and he had a powerful sermon against
bicycle riding on Sunday and newspaper reading on
Sunday and all of the women parading around
in their refinery in these big hats.
And oh, did he thunder against it.
He said, you are breaking the Sabbath, its
pride and its arrogancy, and he went down
the line.
In fact, he was voicing the feeling and
the doctrine and the opinions of the multitudes
of believers at that time.
Today, Sunday is no longer a hallowed day.
It's a shopping day.
Go to the suburbs and look at the
malls, the biggest shopping crowds of any day
of the week.
The blue logs are all gone, of course,
and now they say, what do you mean
Sabbath?
What do you mean closing a store?
That's the greatest money-making day it is.
Millions of Christians, Friday and Saturday, go out
to their chalets, their places out in the
country, and Sunday, or they may go to
a church for half an hour, an hour,
early Sunday morning, the earlier the better, so
it doesn't take away the pleasure of the
day, and they go on their boats and
their cruises and picnics and all.
Here they go, Sunday.
Now you say, Brother Dave, is all of
this simply breaking away now, that we don't
do this now anymore, that's all gone?
Is this just a break away from rigid
legalism?
Is this a sign that we have now
spiritual maturity and making the Sabbath more of
a spiritual observance rather than a legal observance,
because even though the fourth commandment says, remember
the Sabbath day and keep it holy, didn't
Jesus say that he's the Lord of the
Sabbath?
The Sabbath is made for man and not
man for the Sabbath.
Now the Sabbath means to cease, to stop
what you've been doing in six days, and
on the seventh you rest.
Six days shall you labor and do all
your work, but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it
thou shalt not do any work, for in
six days the Lord made heaven and earth
and the sea and all that's in them,
and he rested on the seventh day.
Now, in the Old Testament, God so honored
that day, in fact, I want to show
you how he heaped honor on the seventh
day, on the Sabbath.
I want you to go to Exodus 16.
Now, folks, you don't know it yet, so
don't get excited.
I've got to give you this base before
I give you the revelation that God's put
in my heart.
Go to Exodus 16, if you will, please.
Exodus, the 16th chapter, and I want you
to begin following me as I read starting
at verse 22.
Exodus 16, verse 22.
And it came to pass that on the
sixth day they gathered twice as much bread,
two omers for one man, and all the
rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.
And he said unto them, This is that
which the Lord has said, Tomorrow is the
rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.
Bake that which you bake today, and seed
that which you seed, and that which remaineth
over, lay up for you to be kept
until the morning.
They laid it up till the morning as
Moses bade, and it did not stink, neither
was there any worm therein.
And Moses said, Eat that today, for today
is the Sabbath unto the Lord.
Today shall you not find it in the
film.
Six days you'll gather it, but on the
seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it
there shall be none.
And it came to pass that they went
out, some of the people, on the seventh
day together they found none.
The Lord said unto Moses, How long do
you refuse to keep my commandments, and my
law?
See, for that the Lord hath given you
the Sabbath.
Now, I want you to notice this.
The Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore
he giveth you on the sixth day the
bread of two days, that by thee every
man in his place let no man go
out of his place on the seventh day.
So the people rested on the seventh day.
Now, the Lord kept keeping honor on this
day all through it.
In fact, in Numbers, the fifteenth chapter, you
don't have to go there, but in the
fifteenth chapter of Numbers, a certain man went
out on the Sabbath and he was gathering
up lumber, sticks for a fire.
And he was caught, and he was brought
to Moses.
And Moses put him in a bay, so
to speak.
He didn't know what to do with him.
He didn't know how to chastise him.
He knew God said, keep it holy, and
he knew it was against the law, but
there was no law yet, there was no
rules on the chastisement of a man who
would go out and pick up sticks on
the Sabbath.
He could have done it any sixth day,
but he chose to do it on the
Sabbath, the seventh day.
The Lord came to Moses while he was
thinking of what to do with this man,
and here came this amazing word.
The man shall be surely put to death.
All the congregations will stone him with stones
outside the camp.
In fact, folks, listen to me please.
Agnostics have used this very episode in the
Old Testament, and I've heard it used, and
it's in many of the books of the
atheists and others, that God, here's a picture
of how cruel God is.
A man, God would have a man stoned
to death because he picked up sticks on
the Sabbath.
But folks, I want you to know God
was trying to say something to mankind, to
you, to me, and all of history.
He was trying to say that my laws
have a purpose, my laws have a reason
behind them, I can't explain it all to
you, but I'm trying to lift the burden
of life from you, I'm trying to give
you principles, and if you break them, you're
going to burden yourself down, you're going to
break down the very fiber of society, and
God was trying to establish something about the
Sabbath, that it would be absolutely honored, totally
honored and respected.
Now, go to Exodus, the 31st chapter with
me, please.
Turn right a little further, Exodus 31.
Now, this is going to get interesting in
just a minute.
Exodus 31, verse 12, beginning to read.
Do you have it?
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak
thou also unto the children of Israel, saying,
Verily, my Sabbath ye shall keep, for it
is a sign between me and you throughout
your generation, that ye may know that I
am the Lord that does sanctify you.
Ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it
is holy unto you.
Every one that defileth it shall surely be
put to death.
For whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul
shall be cut off from among his people.
Six days may work be done, but in
the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy
to the Lord.
Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day,
he shall surely be put to death.
Wherefore, the children of Israel shall keep the
Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations.
What's it say?
For a, what?
Perpetual covenant.
Now, am I suggesting we go back to
the legal...
Oh, wait a minute, you know, I've got
to stop for a minute.
I know some of you are already thinking,
oh boy, here he goes again.
A legal, hard message.
And somebody said, brother, I can hear somebody
say right now, I think I hear it
in my mind.
I don't know.
Brother Dave, I love you.
I appreciate you as a pastor, but I've
got enough problems trying to take clean in
a dirty city.
Now you're going to lay this guilt chip
on me about the Sabbath.
There goes my picnics, there goes my walks
in Central Park, there goes my Sunday afternoon
at McDonald's.
Didn't the Lord shop on the Sabbath?
He went and picked corn with his disciples
on the Sabbath.
He traveled, he ate, he healed on the
Sabbath.
In fact, the main accusation of the Pharisees
against Jesus was that he was a Sabbath
breaker.
That was their number one complaint, that he
broke the Sabbath.
Now, I have to admit to you that
I still have in me this great respect
for the Sabbath.
I still don't like to see people giving
themselves to sports.
I don't like the idea that it's play
day.
I don't like to see people working except
those whose jobs require it.
Now, Jesus did say, if your donkey's in
the ditch, you go and get your donkey
out on Sabbath.
So if you've got a donkey in the
ditch, you go get him out.
In other words, you've got a real problem
in your home or your job or something,
you've got to get your donkey out of
the ditch.
I understand that, but I don't like the
fact that it's play day.
It's just another day to Christians.
I have, I believe that God honors those
who honor this day.
There's no question about that.
But I'm not going to get into a
discussion about whether Saturday is a Sabbath or
Sunday.
Now, actually, legally, Saturday is the seventh day.
That is the legal Sabbath.
But we worship the Lord on the first
day because that's the day Jesus was resurrected
from the dead.
And we do that because also in 1
Corinthians 16.2, Paul states on the first
day of the week, gather and worship.
He mentions it.
That's in 1 Corinthians 16.2. He said,
let's get together and bring your collections there
and worship.
And the Scripture says, upon the first day
of the week, the disciples came together and
they broke bread and Paul preached to them.
That was the first day.
That's our Sunday.
That's why it's become our Sabbath.
Now, having said all this, let me give
you what I believe is the true Sabbath.
In light of what I'm going to share
with you now, I would say very few
of us really honor the Sabbath.
Very few here.
I don't know if in the past I
have not honored it.
Even though I value the legal side of
it, I have not seen the spiritual meaning
of it until recently.
Let me begin by repeating the fourth commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Keep it holy.
Your next question should be, well, how do
I keep it holy?
What is God requiring of me?
If it's not legal and it's spiritual, how
does that define itself for my everyday living?
All right?
By the time, and you'll have to follow
me very closely now, by the time of
the prophets, the breaking of the Sabbath had
to do with burden bearing.
It had to do with burden bearing.
Animals carrying burdens in and out of Jerusalem.
All through Judah.
All through Israel.
Donkeys, mules, laying down on the Sabbath, coming
with spices, and wines, and figs, and grapes,
business, commerce.
But all of these burden bearers in almost
every prophet, Jeremiah especially, and I'll show it
to you, begins to identify the Sabbath with
burden bearing.
I want you to go to Jeremiah the
17th chapter, please.
Jeremiah 17.
Oh Holy Spirit, make this real now to
our hearts.
Bring it forth.
I want you to follow me first.
Don't race ahead of me.
Just Jeremiah 17 verses 21 and 22.
This is Jeremiah speaking.
And don't go ahead of me.
Just follow me in these two verses.
If you get ahead of me, you'll get
mixed up.
Thus saith the Lord, take heed yourselves, and
bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor
bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
Neither carry forth a burden out of your
houses on the Sabbath day, neither do any
work, but hallow ye the Sabbath as I
commanded your fathers.
Now look at me, please.
Jeremiah is standing at the gate of Jerusalem,
one of the main gates of commerce in
Jerusalem, and he's watching the people coming in,
leading donkeys loaded with all kinds of burdens.
These donkeys are loading down, laden down.
He goes into the city and he sees
people on the Sabbath carrying these heavy loads
into their homes.
They've been shopping, carrying these big loads on
their back.
They have taken all of their crafts and
their goods, and they're heading to the market
and the business place.
They're going out.
The people that live in the country, their
fire goods, the people are loaded, laden down.
And he's looking at everybody, everybody, all God's
children had burdens.
Every one of them were carrying heavy, heavy
burdens.
And he stops the traffic.
He says, stop.
And the wind says, take heed.
Listen to me.
And I can see a traffic jam.
I can see donkeys and mules just lying
back, and he's crying out, wait a minute.
This is the Sabbath.
You are not according to the law of
God to carry a burden on the Sabbath.
You're sinning.
You can't carry a burden in or out.
You can't take a burden into your house.
I'll show that to you very clearly here.
You can't take a burden into your house
without breaking the law.
This is going to get very, very interesting
here.
I hope it is to you because it
has blessed my soul.
Now keep in mind that what happened in
Jeremiah's day, both to Jeremiah, what he said,
and what he speaks here, the Bible says
all the prophets were speaking to us, upon
whom the ends of the world have come.
And everything that happened in the Old Testament
is a pattern.
Jeremiah was not speaking only to his people.
In fact, I consider this passage one of
the most prophetic passages in the Old Testament.
It is a life-changing prophetic word from
the prophet Jeremiah who speaks to this day
just as surely as Isaiah did.
Isaiah is a powerful prophet to the last
days.
Now here's the point of my message.
Right here, simple and clear.
When it said, God rested on the seventh
day, it had nothing to do with weariness.
You know God can't get weary.
The Scripture makes that clear.
It's not possible.
His arm is never short.
His ear is never heavy.
And neither does he slumber or sleep.
Isaiah 40, 28.
Hast thou not known?
Hast thou not heard?
That the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator
of the ends of the earth, fainteth not,
neither is weary.
So it can't be weariness when he rested.
Then there has to be another meaning when
it says God rested.
Now, surely you don't believe that God just
laid down on his throne for...
Now, he's a spirit, by the way, that
you can't see.
You suppose that the Spirit, God, the Holy
Spirit, just took 24 hours off?
Let me tell you what I believe the
rest means when he rested.
Man in his world had been created.
Six days of creation.
He created man.
He created a world.
He created the sun, the moon, the stars,
the galaxies, they're in place.
What a marvelous creation it was.
And God says it is good.
But I'm telling you, he didn't say it
is good until the seventh day.
He could not look at a creation that
only had a man who could fail, a
man who had the potential to sin, a
man who could bring ruin on his whole
creation and call it good.
That's not what he's talking about.
When it says he rested, it's just like
an architect who's been drawing up plans, and
he finally puts the capstone, he finally puts
the last few lines in it, and he
backs off, he lays it down, it's a
completed plan.
The plan, he rests his case.
He rests.
It's finished.
That's what it means.
It's finished.
Now, folks, let me tell you what the
seventh day is, the Sabbath.
That is the time when God looked at
his creation and gave man his free will
when he created him.
And this free will man is placed here
with the potential to live an innocent, glorious
life the rest of his years.
He would populate the earth in true fellowship
with the Lord.
But in the foreknowledge of God, God knew
the potential of the first Adam to sin.
So God, in his infinite wisdom, said, I
have a plan.
See, Jesus was begotten from the foundation of
the world.
That means when God created the world, he
devised a plan to redeem man if he
potentially failed.
And he says, I will not allow the
devil, I will not allow sin to burden
down this creation of mine and burden it
down where it despairs of the gift of
life.
So God has the plan in place now.
He would give his only begotten Son.
And this day of grace, from the cross
and the resurrection of Jesus until the sound
of the trumpet, is the seventh day.
It's the seventh day, it's the Sabbath.
You and I are living in the Sabbath
of God.
His day of rest, it's the day of
the Lord.
He rested because his plan was done and
that's why Jesus on the cross looks up
and says, Father, it's finished.
When he's saying the plan you devised from
the foundation of the world, it's all done,
it's finished.
Our Father rested because he knew of this
day coming in which you and I live.
And in his mind, in his infinite mind
and wisdom, he came into this rest.
Nothing can destroy my creation because I now
have a plan that when men are burdened
down by sin, when men are burdened down
by grief, when men are burdened down, they
don't have to care because I have brought
forth a burden-bearer.
A burden-bearer.
David recognized him as the burden-bearer from
the creation.
David cried out, Cast thy burden upon the
Lord and he shall sustain thee.
And he knew he needed a burden-bearer
because he said, My iniquities have gone over
my head.
It's a heavy burden.
They're too heavy for me.
When the Lord says, There remaineth a day
of rest for the children of God, he's
saying that this offer still stands that if
you and I, by faith, will enter into
this Sabbath rest, if we will bring our
burdens to the Lord, it is written that
you shall not carry your burden into your
house, but you will take your burden on
this Sabbath and you will lay it on
him because he's the Lord of this Sabbath.
He's the only one over and above this
Sabbath that can bear burdens.
Nobody else is allowed to bear the burden.
On Sabbath, we're deceased from our works.
Neither do ye any work, but hallow ye
the Sabbath.
The six days had to do before the
cross.
It was a time of works.
But now, it's a time of faith, of
taking all of our sin burden, all of
our cares, all of our concerns, and putting
them on his back.
No more striving to work or merit salvation.
No more self-effort to do it in
our own strength to try to please God.
No more promises that we can't keep because
it's a Sabbath.
The Sabbath is not just on Sunday.
Seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Look at verse 25.
Then shall there enter into the gates of
this city kings and princes sitting upon the
throne of David.
Now, who's sitting on the throne of David?
Jesus.
He's talking about Jesus.
Sitting upon the throne of David, riding in
chariots and horses.
They and their princes.
Who are the kings and princes and priests
under the Lord?
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Folks, we are the inhabitants of the new
Jerusalem.
And this city shall remain forever.
Here's the promise.
If you will take your burden to the
burden bearer.
If you will understand that this is a
Sabbath and you're not allowed to carry your
burden.
It's not a matter of an option.
It's a matter if you're going to say
that you trust God.
You're going to walk according to his word.
You're going to lay every burden, every care,
cast your care upon him because he cares
for you.
You're going to put your burden on the
Lord.
You're not going to carry it another hour.
If prophet Jeremiah lived today and he were
aware of all the gospel truths of the
cross and he saw when he came and
walked among us and I invited him to
speak to this congregation.
He would be dumbfounded.
He said, why did you bring your burdens
in here tonight?
Why do you take your burden from the
workplace into your house?
And why do you take it from the
house into the workplace?
Why are you walking around New York with
this burden when you're in the Sabbath?
He would preach what he preached at Jerusalem.
Thou shall carry no burden on the Sabbath.
For it's a holy day unto the Lord.
That's what actually the Bible means by the
beauty of holiness.
Is that you take every care you have.
Every burden you have.
That's the beauty of this whole thing.
That on this Sabbath, I really don't have
to carry any burden.
God's plan for me is to live free
of fear and bondage.
That I am a testimony of that freedom.
Otherwise, what separates us from the world?
What does the world have to see if
you look like them, talk like them and
have the burdens that they carry?
There's no testimony in that.
You say, oh, you don't know what I'm
going through.
You don't know what I'm experiencing.
Well, you're different.
You've got a Sabbath.
The world doesn't have a Sabbath.
They don't even know what it is.
He said, if you lay your burden on
me and cast all your care upon me
and trust me with every care and every
concern that you're really going to understand the
kingship of Christ.
He can't be your king.
He can't come riding through this city of
New Jerusalem in our presence until we crown
him by laying our burdens upon him.
We're making him.
You talk about making him Lord.
If he's not Lord of your burdens, he's
not Lord of anything.
Look at verse 27.
This is the end of side one.
You may now turn the tape over.
But if you will not hearken unto me
to hallow the Sabbath day and not to
bear a burden, even entering at the gates
of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I
will kindle a fire in the gates thereof,
and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem,
and it shall not be quenched.
You know what that means?
Look at me, please.
He said, if you're not going to lay
your burdens on me, he said, they're going
to consume you.
They'll consume.
You're going to go around all the time
just talking about your pain and your sorrow.
You're just going to go around.
It's going to consume you.
It's going to be a fire burning in
you.
It's going to destroy your house.
And it's not a judgment of God.
It's just that this is what happens when
you carry your burden.
You get up in the morning.
You talk about it.
You talk to everybody, and you're nothing but
carrying your burden around night and day.
And what an incredibly poor testimony to the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We get up in the morning, consumed with
our burdens.
We hardly sleep at night.
We go over all of our problems.
We try to figure out what did I
do wrong?
Where did I go wrong?
Or how can I make it right?
We wake up, we pick up our burdens,
and every day we pick up our burdens.
We take them everywhere we go.
We take our burdens.
We are loaded down like the donkeys.
We're mules.
We're stubborn as mules, carrying these burdens around
on the Sabbath.
Listen to what Jesus said.
Come unto me, all ye that are weary
and heavy laden.
I'll give you rest.
How's he going to do it?
By taking all our burdens off our back
and said, here, give them to me.
He said, if you will not by faith
lay down your heavy burden on your burden
bearer, you're going to spend all your days
in the fires of heaviness and despair, consumed
by fear and depression.
That's why so many Christians are in despair
and depression.
Now, let me tell you something in my
final remarks.
Laying down your burden is no easy thing
to do.
In fact, it requires drastic action.
It takes a powerful act of determination, and
it's almost like a spiritual surgery.
I can speak from experience that, folks, it's
best illustrated in the book of Nehemiah.
Now, you don't have to turn there, but
Nehemiah saw the same sight in his day
as Jeremiah did.
They were rebuilding the city and the gates,
and at the conclusion, the gates were up
in place.
And he noticed that even though they were
very diligent in every other aspect, they were
diligent in worship, they had been faithful in
rebuilding the city, but there was one thing
that they were missing.
They were missing the meaning of the Sabbath.
And, folks, you can be very diligent to
the Lord.
You can love Him with all your heart
and still carry your burden on the Sabbath.
You can still be breaking the Sabbath.
And breaking the Sabbath is simply carrying your
burdens that belong on His back.
It's that simple.
That's what this whole thing, this whole teaching
is about in the book of Jeremiah and
also in Nehemiah.
Now, Nehemiah is standing on the walls, and
he's looking at the gates, and he sees
this traffic.
He sees all these dogs and people running.
All are sitting in the same burden.
Bearers are still there.
And he said, they were bringing in sheaves
and laden down their donkeys, laden down, burdened
down with wine and grapes and figs and
all manner of burdens, which they were bringing
into Jerusalem on the Sabbath.
Now, Nehemiah began to testify against them.
He said, I testified against them.
I tried to show them where they were
wrong.
Now, this is equated with coming to church
and hearing the preaching.
Now, right now, I'm testifying to you about
the Sabbath and the real meaning of it.
But you see, that didn't lift the burden.
This didn't get through to them.
And then he said, I contended with them.
See, he's stepping it up a little more.
He contended with them.
He's raising his voice and his level of
appeal.
And I said unto them, what evil thing
is this that you do and profane the
Sabbath?
He said, I chided them.
I preached to them.
I warned them.
But it didn't work.
And, folks, you can say, I'm going to
go to the Lord and I'm going to
just lay my burden down.
We talk about when I lay my burden
down, we sing about it.
And so we go to bed at night
and say, Lord, I lay every burden down.
I'll just lay it at your feet.
We get up in the morning, pick one
up here, go to the shower.
Another one hits us, my finances, my pain.
And by the time we get out of
the house, we don't have a smile left.
And here we go.
We got the load back down on our
shoulder.
Those loads are not going to go easy.
Going to take a spiritual surgery.
And that's what Nehemiah is talking about.
And I want you to listen very closely.
So Nehemiah said, I've had enough.
And it came to pass that when the
gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before
the Sabbath, I commanded that the gates be
shut.
And I charged them that they should not
open it till after the Sabbath.
And some of my servants, I said at
the gates, there should be no burdens be
brought in on the Sabbath day.
Now, you'd think that's enough.
But these people with burdens and their donkeys
and their mules camped out waiting for the
gate to open.
All night long, the burdens were hanging around.
They hang around all night waiting to get
back in.
He said, I set my sentries out there
and I tried to tell them, I contended
with them.
I told them, I warned them.
Folks, you have got to speak to your
burdens.
You've got to talk God's language to your
burdens.
I mean, one by one.
Listen to this talk.
So the merchants lodged around the wall.
Then I testified against them and I said
to them, if you once more come near
this wall, I'll lay hands on you.
From that time on, they came no more
on the Sabbath.
And you've got to speak the language of
faith and say, I have a burden bearer.
You financial burden on my back.
You lying spirit.
You spirit of despair, depression, sorrow, grief.
I'm not allowed to carry this burden.
It's the Sabbath.
My God sent an Adam, a perfect second
last Adam.
And he's provided everything I need in Christ.
Everything.
If I will simply trust that living word
of God, I speak to my fears.
I speak to it, say in name of
Jesus, I command you to leave.
If you come back again, I'll lay hands
on you and cast you into utter darkness.
You got to shut the gates.
Of your mind.
You know, you can do that tonight.
You can do that in this service while
I'm speaking.
Say, Father, by faith, I am going to
push these thoughts and these burdens out of
my mind.
This is where the mind of Christ belongs.
And by faith in the name of Jesus
Christ, my Lord, I am not going to
put up with this burden bearing anymore.
It's my Sabbath.
I am not going to carry my burden.
Jesus, take it.
Here's my financial burden.
Here's my grief.
Here's my pain.
Here's my temptation.
Here's the battle I'm going through.
Whatever your burden, all of it.
It's not that you get rid of nine
out of ten.
You get rid of all of them.
All burdens.
Some of you sitting here tonight have been
part of my burden.
I'm laid you down.
Some of my foolishness is a burden.
I'm laying it.
I'm asking God.
You know, when the brother preached here on
marriage Sunday afternoon, we went home.
And my wife, Gwen, said, boy, he nailed
you.
Because I'm the most impatient man.
Honey, we got to get going.
I finally, I walk out and let his
lever, you know.
I said, honey, I'll admit that he nailed
me if you admit you got something out
of it.
She said, oh, yes, I did.
I said, great.
But I'll tell you something.
I'm not going to.
I'm not going to sit around saying, oh,
God, what am I going to do?
How am I going to get this right?
I'm going to love him with all my
heart, and I'm going to put the burden
of God molding and shaping me in his
own.
I can't shape myself.
I can pray and seek the Lord with
all my heart.
But I have to believe the Holy Ghost
to come down and give me deliverance.
It doesn't mean that I don't have a
part.
My part is to studiously pray.
My part is to hoard the word of
God into my heart that I might not
sin against him.
My part is to cry out to God.
Oh, God, show me the terror of sin.
But I'm not to go around moping and
worrying about it.
I'm telling you now, there's not a burden
you carry that you have a right to
carry any longer.
I'm going to say there's not a burden
you carry that you need to carry another
moment.
Not at all.
I like this.
They came no more on the Sabbath.
The gate shall not be opened until after
the Sabbath.
Well, you know what that means.
The Sabbath is right till Jesus comes.
You've got to say your burdens.
The gates are closed till Jesus comes.
The gates are closed.
I don't anymore.
Folks, this has been freeing for me.
It has been life freeing for me.
My wife said this past week, she said,
You look so peaceful.
Because I'm honoring the Sabbath.
I'm honoring the Sabbath.
Are you honoring the Sabbath right now?
Are you breaking the Sabbath?
Are you sitting in the service tonight so
loaded down?
You came in the service tonight.
Was it?
You say, well, you don't know what I'm
going through.
He does.
He made no exceptions.
These donkeys going by, Jeremiah.
But you don't understand, Jeremiah.
You know, I've got to have money because,
you know, I've got a boy in the
hospital.
I've got so much.
There were no excuses.
No excuse.
No burdens.
You shall not bring a burden into your
house.
You know what I'm telling you?
You can't even take them home tonight.
Or you're breaking the Sabbath.
Are you ready?
Stand.
Hallelujah.
I want you to just lift your hands.
Tell the Lord you're sorry for carrying your
burden.
Say, Jesus, take my burden.
Everyone, just lift your hands.
We're going to turn the church into an
altar right now.
Folks, cry out from your heart.
Lord, I've just been burdened down.
I've been crushed.
And I know you don't want me to
live that way.
I don't.
You don't want me to go that way.
I lay my burden on you.
Come on, folks.
Lay it down right now.
By faith, Lord, I speak against my burdens.
I say to my burden in Jesus' name,
depart.
Speak in the name of Jesus.
Speak the word right now.
I speak the word in Jesus' name.
You shall not rule and reign in my
life.
I care you no more.
I lay my burden down.
Hallelujah.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Father, I pray that this truth could be
so real to us that every time we're
toying with a burden in our mind, every
time we're harassed in our spirit and our
mind with some kind of a weary burden,
Lord, that we would remember the Sabbath.
We would remember the victory of the cross.
We remember our burden bearer stands right beside
us, waiting for us just to cast it
on him.
Lord, you'll take every burden we commit to
you.
You'll do it, Lord.
Help us not to walk out of this
place the way we came in.
I thank you for speaking this truth so
real to my heart.
Lord, I don't want to go through any
more of my life carrying these burdens, Lord.
I lay them on you.
I lay every burden on your back.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Holy Spirit.
Listen to my invitation now, if you will,
please.
I'm speaking to those in the balcony on
the main floor that have been harassed by
a spirit right out of hell.
Your mentally spirits are being tormented by a
burden or just something that you're going through.
It can be depression, whatever it may be.
There are some of you that have slipped
away from the Lord backslid and really your
heart's grown cold to the Lord.
I want you to come also.
But if you're here up in the balcony,
go to the stairs on either side.
Just say, Pastor David, I am being harassed
in my mind and my spirit, and this
has become a real crushing burden to my
walk with God, and I want to be
free.
If you have a heavy, heavy burden and
you just need a little help to get
it off your back onto the back of
the Lord, come and we'll pray with you.
And through the Spirit of the living God,
pray that it all be cast out of
your life.
Let's take authority over the devil in Jesus'
name.
Take authority over everything the enemy is trying
to crush you with.
You're crushed by something.
It's just crushing your spirit.
This is the conclusion of the tape.